


Best Buds

by smilexdarling



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Coming Out, Developing Friendships, F/M, Family Drama, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, Light Angst, M/M, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 04:24:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11843883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilexdarling/pseuds/smilexdarling
Summary: Sana notices Isak is struggling and she does what any best bud would do to try and help out.This takes place between episodes 4 and 6 of season 3.Skam Fic Week Day 4: rewrite/extend a canon scene





	Best Buds

“Can you focus?” Sana asked, annoyed.

“Mm,” Isak hummed as he closed out of his Mom’s texts and set his phone down on the desk.

He glanced at Sana. The question, once it had popped into his head, gnawed at him until he had no choice but to ask.

“Sana, I have a question. How can you be religious?” Her extremely unimpressed glare didn’t bode well, but Isak couldn’t seem to help himself. “I just mean, you’re really smart, right? So, how can you believe in something that says there’s this one god that says you can’t eat certain foods or that being gay is wrong?”

She continued to stare at him, unblinking, lips pursed. 

He gulped.

Finally after letting him sweat it out, Sana narrowed her eyes and asked, “What’s this really about?”

“Huh?” he squeaked.

Sana pushed her laptop aside and folded her hands on the desk, “Do you really want to understand my faith and my relationship with it, or are you trying to get at something else?”

Isak could feel his blood pressure spike, “No, I-It just didn’t make sense. It’s whatever, never mind. Sorry I asked.” He ducked his head and picked at a spot on their table with his nail.

“Isak,” he looked back up at her, “Don’t think for a second that I bought that. I’ll let it go for now, but in the future? Maybe don’t insult my intelligence and my religion all in one ignorantly-worded question just to avoid talking about your feelings. Okay?”

“Okay,” Isak conceded, feeling sufficiently chastised but grateful for the fact that Sana wasn’t going to push the subject.

To make things even better, Emma popped up out of nowhere, babbling about Halloween costumes, and Isak actually would have preferred to talk about religion than listen to Emma talk ever again but alas, he’d made his bed. Now he had to lie in it.

He supposed he also deserved Sana’s blatant enjoyment of his misery. 

* * *

A couple of weeks later, Isak’s life had taken quite the turn for the worse. It was honestly impressive just how fucked everything could get in such a short amount of time.

He had a cryptic conversation with Jonas at their lockers, desperately wishing he could take him up on his offer to talk, but knowing he couldn’t. There’d be too much to explain, and Isak is so fucking tired. He couldn’t even think about potentially coming out to his best friend, the one person he really needed to know would always there for him, because if he lost Jonas… No. He couldn’t go there. The point was, he wasn’t ready to talk about it to anyone, but it was fucking with his sleep schedule and eating him up inside. 

Seeing Even everywhere looking so incredible but so unattainable didn’t help either. 

He wished they could just go back to that weekend in Isak’s room and stay there forever. 

Nothing hurt then.

Isak dumped his bag on the floor and took his seat next to Sana before folding his arms on their desk and resting his head on top of them. He closed his eyes, hoping that maybe their teacher would be running a few minutes late and he could maybe take a power nap.

However, that would mean he’d have to actually have any good luck ever, which was not how his life worked. 

Sana poked his arm and he looked up to see a pair of barely concealed breasts staring back at him from the front of the room. 

He sighed.

“You look like shit,” Sana murmured.

He threw her a narrowed glance, not bothering to protest. He knew she was right.

“What’s the deal?”

Isak shrugged, “Just can’t sleep much lately.”

“Hm.”

He thought that’d be the end of their heartfelt exchange, but a few minutes later Sana interrupted his moping again.

“You should come over for dinner.”

Furrowing his brow, Isak wordlessly blinked at Sana in disbelief.

She turned her head slightly and met his eyes; he noticed her gaze softened minutely as she took in his dark circles.

“I’m serious.” 

“But, why? We’re not even friends. Not really,” Isak trailed off.

“Well maybe that can change if you come over for dinner. You look like death and I’m sick of having to pull your weight on our assignments. An actual meal might help,” Sana said. Her words were harsh, but her tone let on that she really was worried, at least a little bit. 

Isak licked his lips, “Um. Okay?”

Sana nodded and smiled a tight-lipped smile, her dimples coming out in full force, “Great. Wednesday at seven. Don’t be late.”

“I won’t,” Isak said, stunned.

That was the end of the conversation apparently, since Sana ignored him for the rest of the class to work on their paper. He appreciated the chance to rest his eyes and tried not to think about warm cuddles and soft kisses.

* * *

Isak chewed the inside of his lip. He was thoroughly freaking out.

He’d never been to Sana’s house before, but it looked impressive just from the outside, and he really hoped that for as—stern—as Sana could be, her family might be a little less intimidating. The chances of that were probably slim.

Fortunately, that thought was immediately proven wrong the second the door opened and Sana’s mom greeted him with a bright, smiling face, ushering him in and taking his jacket. 

“Sana! You’re friend is here,” Mrs. Bakkoush shouted, “Now Isak, I hope you can eat because I’ve got quite the menu tonight, and Sana’s brothers won’t be joining us, so we might even have to send some home with you. Don’t worry, I’ll include reheating instructions.”

All Isak could think to do to respond to such, mothering, he guessed is what most people would call it, was to nod as Mrs. Bakkoush patted his shoulder and led him into the dining room.

“Ah Isak, welcome. I’m Sana’s dad. I’m so glad you could join us this evening,” Mr. Bakkoush said with a warm smile.

Sana finally appeared and they all settled in to eat. 

The food was delicious, and Isak had to actively try and not groan out loud as he tasted each new dish. Of course, his stupid brain wouldn’t let him forget the last time someone had cooked for him, it hadn’t tasted nearly as good as the meal before him, but it had still been special. Then, because that painful memory wasn’t enough, he tried to think of the last time his own family had had a meal together and came up blank. 

He needed to stop brooding, it was rude, but it was hard to switch gears once he’d let himself go down that rabbit hole.

Luckily, Sana’s parents didn’t say anything about his gloomy mood. They just engaged him in conversation about school and he really enjoyed hearing Mr. Bakkoush’s stories about being a surgeon. 

Soon enough, they’d all finished eating and Isak and Sana cleaned everything up. 

As they dried the last dish, Isak assumed that was his cue to head home, but Sana gestured toward their back door. He followed her outside and chuckled at their swing set as Sana went and sat on one. After a rather impatient indication from Sana that he was being too slow, Isak joined her and sat on the other swing.

He kicked off halfheartedly and enjoyed the feeling of swaying back and forth.

“Thanks for having me over. You’re parents are really nice and the food was great.”

Isak peaked over at Sana, she nodded but otherwise remained quiet.

They sat there and enjoyed the silence for a few minutes, nothing but the sound of the creaky swing set frame interrupting the peace.

“I don’t know what’s wrong, and if you tell anyone I’ll do unspeakable things to you, but I’m worried.”

Isak turned to her, surprised and her candidness and the lack of sarcasm.

“You look like you can hardly stay awake whenever you’re at school and I know you like science, so the fact that you’re slacking so much on the assignments is strange. You just seem, I don’t know, even more pouty than usual. It’s weird.”

The thing is, Isak should’ve known more people than just his close friends would pick up on it. He was too tired most of the time lately to put on a very convincing front that everything was fine, but no-one except for Jonas had mentioned it. 

He wasn’t sure what to say. And wasn’t that always his problem lately? He never knew what to say and what to withhold from anyone; he never knew what was safe to share and what was worth opening up about. Especially considering how everything with Even had fallen apart anyway.

Later, he’d blame the exhaustion for just letting it all out, but he knew it was because he’d just reached the end of his rope and, well, Sana had sort of asked.

“I had this thing with Even, he’s uh, he’s a third year. And a boy.”

Sana stopped swinging and turned to look at him, nodding for him to continue.

“I think—I really liked him and I thought he felt the same way, but,” Isak sighed. “He has a girlfriend and he told me he’d ended things with her, but then it turns out he didn’t and they’re back together and I’m just here, alone again.”

He had to break their eye contact, he wasn’t able to keep the truth from pouring out, but looking at Sana while it did was more than he could handle.

“I haven’t told anyone about it, or about me, and things are so weird because I don’t know where we stand. Sometimes I catch him looking at me at school and he looks, sad? Like he wants to talk to me but can’t, or something. Which doesn’t make any sense because he’s the one that said he needed time and then went and got back together with his girlfriend,” Isak paused to try and calm down. He’d gotten a little heated and was trying not to feel embarrassed at the fact that he was essentially spilling his guts to someone he respected well enough, but wasn’t necessarily close to.

“And then there’s my mom. She’s always texting me verses from the Bible, and they don’t exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy, and that’s basically the only contact we have right now, and my dad is constantly bugging me, like he even has the right to ask for stuff from me anymore, and I can’t fucking sleep and, and…” Isak startled as Sana gently placed her hand on his shoulder.

He looked at her, confused, and realized he was almost hyperventilating, that tears were starting to gather in his eyes.

Isak sniffed and blinked the tears away the best he could, officially letting the embarrassment wash over him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Don’t be,” Sana sighed. “I don’t have all the answers, but I do have some advice. You can do what you want with it, but I think it might help.”

Isak slowly met her gaze again and she continued.

“You need to tell your friends,” Isak started to protest but Sana held up her other hand, “or at least Jonas. You can’t go through all of that alone. It’s not healthy, which is compounded by the fact that you aren’t sleeping. It was really brave of you to talk to me, and you’re secrets are all safe with me, but I think it’d really help you to let your friends be there for you. 

“As for the stuff with Even, I think you should talk to him. I know you said he’s the one that backed off, but you deserve an explanation or at least some more concrete closure.” Isak grimaced at the idea of reaching out only to get rejected again, so Sana added, “At least think about it.”

Isak nodded and managed a half smile.

“And I really don’t know what to say about the stuff with your parents, but I do know this: everyone has equal worth, and anyone that tries to use the Bible or anything else to justify their hate or bigotry, are wrong. Because their hate didn’t come from their religion. It came from fear.”

They both took a breath and looked away. Isak shuffled his feet and noted that his shoulders didn’t feel quite as tight anymore.

“Thanks, Sanasol.”

“Anytime, Isabell.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](http://www.smilexdarling.tumblr.com) if you like!
> 
> Also, I know in Norway you wouldn't refer to people as Mr. or Mrs. Bakkoush, but I don't know what else to call them...?


End file.
